‘Deadlines for Syria chem weapons eradication need flexibility’

Norwegian navy special forces guard the Norwegian naval frigate "Hnoms Helge Ingstad" in the Cypriot port city of Limassol on December 14, 2013 en route to take part in the joint Danish-Norwegian contribution to the transportation of chemical warfare agents out of Syria. (AFP Photo / Yiannis Kourtolgou) / AFP

Amid criticism of Syria missing deadlines it should be remembered that the timeframes are extremely challenging and being implemented in a war zone, Charles Shoebridge, security analyst and former British counter terrorism intelligence officer, told RT.

UK's Prime Minister David Cameron sharply criticized the pace of
Syria's chemical disarmament, calling for more haste in his
speech on Wednesday. Cameron cited missed deadlines and a lack of
clarity from the Assad government as the most worrying
developments.

Shoebridge reminds that the situation is largely dependent upon
rebels not attacking the process of transportation and
eradication of the chemical weapons.

RT:The US was the first to raise concerns
about the delay, now it's been followed by the UK - is any other
country likely to follow?

Charles Shoebridge: Yes, we can probably see
France joining in, perhaps Israel as well and of course Saudi
Arabia – the usual suspect, some cynics might say - who of course
will use anything in accordance with their foreign policy to
attack Syrian Assad. Just as Assad’s supporters will also use
anything to their propaganda advantage.

I think we really need to see this context from Cameron and from
Kerry recently in the context of the wider political situation.
We have the Geneva 2 talks resuming quite shortly. We’ve also
noticed that Assad is being quite widely criticized now by many
of the Western powers. For example, use of these barrel bombs in
Aleppo. In recent months we’ve seen perhaps less criticism or
condemnation of Assad by name from the UK or US governments as
they wanted to hedge their bets as to what of the outcome of the
war and indeed what the correct outcome, as far as their
interests are concerned, will be.

It’s also very important to keep a perspective on this from the
chemical weapons viewpoint as well. That is whereas Cameron [on
Wednesday], and Kerry before, being very critical of Syria
missing by a few weeks these initial deadlines. The Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), who is managing
this process of removal of [chemical] weapons from Syria, has
come out and said that these deadlines are, in fact, soft
deadlines and the West shouldn’t be too concerned about the
deadlines being missed at this stage. And the OPCW has reiterated
its satisfaction and its confidence that June 30 deadline of
complete eradication of these weapons should be met.

RT:The International regulating body
overseeing the disarmament process doesn't seem to share this
level of concern, why is that?

CH: It’s going to be remembered that the OPCW,
and indeed almost all military and security commentators, will
point out that these deadlines were set under very challenging
circumstances if one remembers Russia and Syria agreed to these
deadlines under the threat of a missile attack from the US and
others on Syria shortly after the Ghouta alleged chemical weapon
attack.

It should be remembered that it’s an extremely challenging set or
deadlines that have been given. I think the OPCW realizes this.
The OPCW isn’t interested at this stage in scoring the political
points as both sides of the Syria dispute are. What they are
interested in is facilitating and having completed their task of
eradicating Syrian chemical weapons. One more thing, countries
such as the US in their eradication program of chemical weapons
faced many delays, asked for many extensions of deadlines, and so
I believe did Russia.

These extensions of the deadlines and difficulties of meeting
these deadlines in terms of chemical weapon destruction are
well-recognized and well-established. These deadlines were set
only for the matter of weeks for Syria instead of months and
years for the US. And uniquely in this case the disposal of the
chemical weapons on this scale also is actually taking place in
an active war zone. And it should be said that as indeed the
Russian Foreign Minister pointed out in the last couple of days,
that there have been a number of security issues to this. And
indeed, Syrian soldiers have been killed guarding these chemical
weapons.

RT:The [British] prime minister also
promised to put pressure on all sides. How much influence does he
have?

CH: David Cameron can say that pressure should
be applied by all sides to all sides of the Syrian chemical
weapons equation but the fact is that form the UK perspective and
indeed the US perspective, it has very little leeway to apply
pressure to either the side of Assad to speed up this process, or
secondly, to apply pressure to the other side of this equation,
which is of course rebels, who are to some extent, and this is
the Assad government’s claim, providing the security risk threat
to the eradication process. For example, transport of these
materials is said to have been attacked with even deaths of
Syrian security personnel taking place.

So there is some sort of security issue actually there, but
generally speaking the US and the UK have very little influence
over rebels, they have very little influence on the official
Syrian opposition that has shown at Geneva. The Syrian opposition
has very little control over the rebels on the ground in Syria.
So on all sides the situation is really dependent upon rebels not
attacking this process of transport and eradication of these
chemical weapons and their constituent ingredients.

But also, of course, on the Assad government, perhaps with
Russian pressure, continuing momentum of the pace of the program.
It should be borne in mind that deadlines that were set for Syria
are extremely challenging, that is accepted by experts around the
world. Other countries such as the US have been given deadlines
in their chemical weapon eradication programs not of weeks, as it
is in the case of Syria, but many years. And even in that case
these deadlines slipped and were extended.

So it’s not surprising that particularly in the war zone that
these very optimistic timelines that were set for full
eradication of Syrian chemical weapons have to show some
flexibility.